"Forward, men," is repeated all along the line. A sheet of
fire was poured into our very faces, and for a moment we halted as if in
despair, as the terrible avalanche of shot and shell laid low those brave
and gallant heroes, whose bleeding wounds attested that the struggle
would be desperate. Forward, men! The air loaded with death-dealing
missiles. Never on this earth did men fight against such terrible odds.
It seemed that the very elements of heaven and earth were in one mighty
uproar. Forward, men! And the blood spurts in a perfect jet from the
dead and wounded. The earth is red with blood. It runs in streams,
making little rivulets as it flows. Occasionally there was a little lull
in the storm of battle, as the men were loading their guns, and for a few
moments it seemed as if night tried to cover the scene with her mantle.
The death-angel shrieks and laughs and old Father Time is busy with his
sickle, as he gathers in the last harvest of death, crying, More, more,
more! while his rapacious maw is glutted with the slain.
But the skirmish line being deployed out, extending a little wider than
the battle did--passing through a thicket of small locusts, where Brown,
orderly sergeant of Company B, was killed--we advanced on toward the
breastworks, on and on.
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